


Pawfully Undignified

by prurientInterests (amberite)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Asthma, Coughing, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Meowrails, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Sickfic, an overly STRONG sense of dignity, or a touch of bronchitis or both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberite/pseuds/prurientInterests
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Equius is prone to bouts of coughing after he's been ill. Also prone to trying to hide it. Poor silly Equius.</p>
<p><em>You're past the point, now, of trying to convince </em>yourself<em> that the tickle that started in your throat hasn't migrated downward into your airsacs where it chafes at you every time you breathe in too deeply. You're just breathing shallowly, tinkering with a servomechanism while Nepeta drinks tea with Feferi Peixes. It would be improper to draw attention to yourself now - now, while the highest-ranking troll on the planet is in the room, even if nothing of more consequence than a game of cards punctuated by kitty roleplay is going on. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Pawfully Undignified

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone is wondering, I opened this pseud for short pieces where the main point of the story is h/c, weird kinks or both. Hence prurientInterests. (You can find all my pseuds at <http://archiveofourown.org/users/amberite>.)

Highbloods shouldn't get sick. Highbloods _certainly_ shouldn't catch upper respiratory infections from lowbloods and then proceed to get sicker than them.

But you do, every time. Nepeta, sprightly irrepressible Nepeta, catches a sniffle and she's over it in the span of a bare few nights; and there's something _wrong_ with you, something broken, and you never know if all the facets of it are connected together or whether you're simply beset with so many different kinds of inconveniences because the Mother Grub decided to try her hand at comedy when assembling your genes. It is your solemn duty to comfort your moirail when she is ill (and above and beyond that, you couldn't possibly look into those droopy eyes and _not_ want to gently stroke her hair) - but that never makes it easier, afterward, when she's well and you've caught the virus and it should have been gone half a perigee ago and instead it's gone straight to your chest and stayed there. Again. 

You're past the point, now, of trying to convince _yourself_ that the tickle that started in your throat hasn't migrated downward into your airsacs where it chafes at you every time you breathe in too deeply. You're just breathing shallowly, tinkering with a servomechanism while Nepeta drinks tea with Feferi Peixes. It would be improper to draw attention to yourself now - now, while the highest-ranking troll on the planet is in the room, even if nothing of more consequence than a game of cards punctuated by kitty roleplay is going on. They can't notice. You _have_ to be doing fine. Even if your hands slip and your claws score a line in the aluminum housing of the robot leg you're attempting to repair when Feferi looks over and says, "What do you think?"

"Pardon me, your Highness?" you ask tightly, trying to sound unconcerned. Talking makes it worse, and you swallow, keep the urge to cough carefully contained.

"Oh, would you STOP that, Equius!" The Heiress makes an impatient face, and Nepeta giggles.

"I am deeply sorry, y-" You have no idea how to address her; her first name just doesn't satisfy the need for propriety, and the tickle in your chest is growing worse and worse, and you clear your throat into your fist uncomfortably. "I must excuse myself -" 

Whatever the conversation is about, it can wait. You stand up and faux-calmly walk to the ablution block; you barely manage to turn the water on for noise before you're completely overcome with a fit of barking coughs, trying to muffle the sound into a towel. You gasp in air but don't quite manage to catch your breath before your airsacs start seizing up again, always worse at the bottom of an exhale, and your chest shakes uselessly until there are spots in your vision. Why won't the itch in your lungs go _away_? 

You hide in the ablution block for about as long as you think you can get away with it, and for all that you do manage to spit up a little phlegm, you're dizzy from effort and your eyes are watering and your throat feels raw by the time you get out. But the tickle has at least abated a little and you manage to make polite noncommittal noises for a while at the Empress-in-waiting whom your moirail insists on calling "Fefurry". 

Nepeta keeps looking over at you with concern, and she finally approaches you with a grumpy expression after Feferi leaves. "You're ill," she says, "and purrtending you're not."

"I haven't been running a fever in days," you say, which doesn't really refute her logic.

"You know purrfectly well that this happens when you catch my colds."

Nepeta looks up at you sadly, and you grimace because she's right. Your moirail puts her hand on your chest, and - it doesn't make it _worse_ exactly, but you were ignoring the tickly feeling before that and it's impossible to ignore when her hand there is calling your attention to it, even though her touch is comforting, and you're coughing again, awful mostly-dry itchy painful deep chesty coughs that bow you forward, elbows to knees, and she pats your back soothingly until you finally manage to inhale without setting it off again.

You're hoarse when you answer back. "This is ridiculous. It is embarrassing and unexpected and I should be immune to such indignities."

"Should this, should that," she says, and lashes her tail impatiently. "Purrhaps your lungs are also a little too strong. They're attempting to furriously pounce on the invaders." And overdoing it, she doesn't need to say. Nepeta and her metaphors. 

She stands up again, wanders briskly over to the water-boiler and pours a pot of tea, brings it back and serves you up a cup; but when you reach to try and drink it, she shakes her head. "No," she says, "put your face ofur it and breathe in the steam. Come on."

You take a shallow breath. The steam has a sharp, herbal smell.

"No, breathe deeper."

"Nepeta, why are you telling me what to do. I outrank -"

"Which makes me by tradition the pacifying partner in this moirallegiance, and the one you should be listening to when you're sitting there coughing and wheezing and purrtending to be well." She crosses her arms over her chest.

"This is humiliating," you protest feebly, but you've mostly given in already.

"So is sitting there acting like you're not about to start coughing. Beclaws it is a _most_ unrealistic choice of roleplay."

So you go ahead and take as deep a breath as you can manage. Which is an exceedingly deep breath; you have a great lung capacity normally - only, it sets off the tickle worse and deeper, like you knew it would. She strokes your back in circles as the fit of coughing runs its course. At least it isn't dry coughing now, at least the steam managed to reach some tenacious dry debris stuck in the bottoms of your airsacs, and you hack and choke and double over with embarrassing rattling noises. 

Each time you manage a gasping inhale between bouts of coughs Nepeta brings the tea up near your face so you'll get a good lungful of it, and the first few times it sets you off worse, but after a little while it starts to soothe your throat and make your lungs feel a little less dry.

You're afraid you'll knock over the teacup and burn her in a desperate spasm, but she deftly avoids that. You always hate the fact that your coughing fits are like earthquakes, and there are reasons you usually try to avoid them while anyone else is in the room. But she sits with you and gives you the occasional _whack_ with the heel of her hand to try and set the congestion loose and holds a handkerchief out when you need to get rid of something, because you're so fastidious that you would sit there and go blue in the face rather than make a mess. How she knows when to do what, you're not sure; it's some moirail instinct.

By the time you're done your eyes are watering and you're sweating. But she's right; whatever's in the tea is making you feel better - although your throat feels worse and you don't even want to try to talk, you can breathe in and out cleanly now. A little shakily, anyway.

"Thank you," you croak out.

"Pale fur you too," she says, and kisses your forehead.


End file.
